Re: Int'l diversity in iTLD Registries

[Ron Fitzherbert <ron@penguin.net>]

I agree with the concept of shared registries, however, I think the
comment about "monopolies" is a bit off the mark.  Right now the only
monopoly that NSI has is that the NSF is not going to contract to another
company to perform registration services for COM/NET/ORg et.al. -- if I
want to start a new registry for .COM I can in about 30 seconds, the
problem is the root domain servers (and the fact that they won't listen to
me) -- so all I would need to do is either convince the root server
operators that they should listen to me, or convince enough people in the
internet that they should use the root servers I would set up.

In the internet (as it is defined today) it is impossible to have a true
monopoly -- you may the appearance of such, but in fact you just have a
herd of lemmings (so to speak).

Ron

On Wed, 11 Dec 1996, Aveek Datta wrote: (in part) --

> On the other hand, creating new monopolies over TLD would just lead to the
> same problem. Of course, a lawyer could create a long long legal binding
> agreement where the monopoly is granted for X years and then after that
> there is no guarantee that the TLD operator would get to resume TLD
> operation. But suppose the TLD operator decides after X years to be hostile
> and resist the change. Then who gets screwed in the end? The people who
> registered in that TLD.
> 
> If shared registries are not a viable alternative, then we should WAIT till
> they are. Not produce more problems.
> 
>  Aveek Datta           _ _ _   _                Email: aveek@andrew.cmu.edu
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